


i’ve done this before (not like this)

by humanveil



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel
Genre: M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-23 09:30:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17680877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanveil/pseuds/humanveil
Summary: In three acts.





	i’ve done this before (not like this)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alexcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexcat/gifts).



Fascination. That’s all this is. An interest in the unknown, an innate compulsion to know everything around him: the desire casual, intellectual, _platonic_.

It’s definitely  _not_  infatuation. Not something that makes him giddy, has him remastering the art of flirtation. Not something he considers sexual, or romantic, or—

Or so Tony tells himself. 

The aftermath is... complex. Volatile, often traumatic: the public opinion filled with equal parts gratitude and resentment. Tony had expected many things, but an irresistible connection to Stephen Strange had not been one of them. 

—

He fools himself for maybe a week, two if he’s being generous. It’s just... he’s never been very good at not getting what he wants, and it becomes clear, very quickly, that what he wants is Stephen. Any way he can have him. 

“You know,” Tony drawls, mouth tilted, eyes sparkling in the low light. “I think I’m due for a physical.” 

They’re huddled in the corner of an event—charity, or promotion, or  _something_. Tony can’t quite recall when they’re standing like this, personal space nonexistent. Too close. Too tipsy. 

Stephen looks at him in a way that makes Tony feel like he’s still playing catch-up, like Stephen knows something he is not yet aware of. He remembers a comment about fourteen million timelines and thinks,  _maybe he_   _does_. 

“That line doesn’t work,” Stephen says, and Tony’s smile widens. 

_Challenge accepted._

—

It  _does_  work. Or maybe it’s something else that works. Maybe a combination of somethings. 

Stephen’s mouth is sweet when they kiss for the first time, the press of lips gentle until it isn’t. Until hands move against fabric and flesh with increasing levels of desperation. 

Tony immerses himself in it: in Stephen, in sensation, in the touch and taste of another body beside his. In the solace it brings. 


End file.
